Here’s how Prairie Hill become a Blue Ribbon School

CEDAR RAPIDS — Learning that two years of focused hard work to improve student attendance and academic achievement led to Prairie Hill Elementary School to be named a Blue Ribbon School gave fourth grade teacher Aleisha Nova “goose bumps.”

“It’s validation for a lot of hard work,” said Kendra Hanzlik, an instructional coach at Prairie Hill, which was recognized last month by the Iowa Department of Education as a one of four Blue Ribbon Schools in the state.

“We never stop learning in the same way that we don’t want our students to stop learning. We’re always looking at new instructional practices to see if there are other ways we can continue to close that gap. There’s still work to be done, but I think we’re all motivated to make sure every student is successful in school,” Hanzlik said.

The Blue Ribbon Schools program honors “exemplary schools that are achieving their unique educational goals,” according to the Iowa Department of Education.

The honorees were designated as high-performing schools by using state assessments and national tests, and each was among the top 15 percent of all Iowa public schools in overall performance on school accountability indicators such as student proficiency and growth, according to the state education department.

How did Prairie Hill become a Blue Ribbon School?

It was 2022 when the school that serves about 485 students in alternative kindergarten through fourth grade was put on a school improvement plan called the Every Student Succeeds ACT or ESSA by the Iowa Department of Education.

ESSA identifies schools that are struggling or who have student groups that are underperforming. At Prairie Hill, that student group was students from low-income families.

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The school’s proficiency in English language arts and math was 61 percent, below the state average of almost 71 percent proficient in language arts and almost 65 percent proficient in math, according to results from the 2022 Iowa School Performance Profile.

“We needed a fix. We needed to change something,” said fourth grade teacher Whitney Velvick. “We started making sure we were meeting kids at the door, greeting them from the minute they walked in and building those relationships, so we can academically meet their needs.”

The Iowa School Performance Profile assesses all schools on core areas including proficiency in English language arts, mathematics, science, student academic growth and chronic absenteeism.

The school is one of the more diverse elementary schools in the College Community district. Sixty-three percent of students are white, almost 20 percent are Black, almost 7 percent are Hispanic and more than 7 percent are multiracial.

More than 10 percent are English Language Learners and in this year, more than 36 percent from low-income families.

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Hanzlik said that school staff don’t know which students are from low-income families, making it “tricky” to focus in on improving their academic performance.

“That’s private information,” she said. “We needed to look at every single student we have here to make sure the practices we were putting into place were good for all students.”

The hard work began.

Teachers, students, families, nutrition service workers, volunteers and other building staff ensured that each day students arrived at school, they felt seen and connected.

“It’s really hard to teach students who aren’t at school, and that’s why attendance became a really big push for us. We knew if we could get students here regularly and provide the best possible instructional practices, it was going to be magic to make sure all students were succeeding,” Hanzlik said.

It took a lot of phone calls and meetings with families and even some home visits, said Principal Scott Schipper, who has led the school since it opened in 2014 in the College Community School District. Students who were chronically absent were assigned a staff member to check in with them every day and “make sure they know we care about them,” he said.

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“We have one of our cooks every day who says ‘hi’ to all the kids as they come in from the bus. All those little things matter,” Schipper said.

Chronic absenteeism at the school dropped from 17 percent to 5 percent and student achievement soared, Schipper said.

“We didn’t do anything fancy. It was just about relationships,” Schipper said.

Teachers engaged more students in targeted intervention to help improve academic achievement. They also began offering more enrichment opportunities for high achieving students, Schipper said.

A team of fourth grade teachers started meeting with small groups of students for WIN, which stands for “What I Need.” The groups met for 20 minutes to work on math and literacy skills.

“Data is always our driving force,” Velvick said. “We’re using that to see what’s working and what’s not. We’re taking ideas from each other and building off our colleagues’ knowledge. Not one of us knows everything, but together, we’re a force to be reckoned with.”

“One of the strengths of our team is we work together in the mornings, during our prep time, after school, constantly talking about kids throughout the day,” said fourth grade teacher Tricia Ward.

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Each fourth grade teacher knows where any fourth grade student — whether they’re in their classroom or not — is in reading or math “because they have studied that data so much,” Schipper said.

Velvick said students in her classroom who historically had negative behaviors now want to come to school. “They feel that they belong and are safe in our classroom. That started with relationships first,” she said.

The 2025 Iowa School Performance Profile reported more than 82 percent proficiency in math, compared to the state average of about 71 percent, and English language arts proficiency of more than 82 percent, more than the state’s average of 73.6 percent.

The school moved from its Iowa School Performance Profile rating of “acceptable” in 2022 to “high performing” by 2024, maintaining that rating this year.

There are six categories in Iowa performance ratings. Highest to lowest, the categories are exceptional, high performing, commendable, acceptable, needs improvement, and priority.

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“For the last several years, we’ve talked a lot about trusting the process and being consistent,” Schipper said.

“I’m proud to be here,” said fourth grade teacher Julie Stallman. “My daughter is 3, and I want her to be here. I want my children at Hill.”

Velvick said being named a Blue Ribbon School “pumped us up.”

“We can do better. We can keep improving,” she said.

Schipper said the “recognition was great,” but the process of getting there “changed lives.”

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